The invention relates to a web-fed printing press.
Web-fed printing presses are known, consisting of at least two printing press subsystems, where the printing press subsystems guide printed substrate webs over at least one shared folding unit. Printing press subsystems are understood to include all technical facilities and/or modules of a web-fed printing press that are responsible for printing substrate webs and conveying the substrate webs, including turning the same, in the direction of a shared folding unit.
In the state of the art, web-fed printing press systems are differentiated with regard to the print pages printable in the same, namely with regard to the print pages printable on a substrate side by side in the longitudinal direction and in succession in the circumferential direction using the corresponding plate cylinders. With a 2/1 printing press subsystem, two print pages are printable on a substrate side by side in the longitudinal direction, i.e., in the axial direction, with the particular plate cylinders and one print page is printable on a substrate in the circumferential direction. With a 4/2 printing press subsystem, four print pages are printable side by side in the longitudinal direction and two print pages are printable in succession in the circumferential direction. In general terms, with an X/Y printing press subsystem, X print pages can be printed side by side in the longitudinal direction and Y print pages can be printed in succession in the circumferential direction. Conventional printing press subsystems are 2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 2/2, 3/2, 4/2 and 6/2 printing press subsystems.
In the state of the art, exclusively printing press subsystems that are equal with regard to the number of print pages printable in the printing press subsystems are combined to form a web-fed printing press, i.e., in these systems the plate cylinders of all printing press subsystems are characterized by an identical number of printable print pages in the longitudinal direction and in the circumferential direction. This necessarily results in a limited flexibility of known web-fed printing presses.
Against this background, the problem on which the present invention is based is to create a novel web-fed printing press.
According to this invention, at least one printing press subsystem is designed differently in comparison with the other or any other printing press subsystem, such that substrate webs having a different number of print pages are printable in these printing press subsystems.
In the sense of the present invention, a web-fed printing press composed of several printing press subsystems which guide the printed substrate webs over at least one shared folding unit is provided, whereby the printing press subsystems of the web-fed printing press are differentiated such that substrate webs are printable with a different number of print pages in the printing press subsystems. In the sense of the present invention, differently designed printing press subsystems which guide the printed substrate webs over at least one shared folding unit are combined here for the first time in one web-fed printing press with regard to the number of printable print pages. This makes it possible to technologically optimize the manufacture of print products while the investment expenditure for a web-fed printing press can be minimized while increasing flexibility.
In the sense of the present invention, it is possible to combine in a web-fed printing press the advantages of printing press subsystems designed differently with regard to the print pages printable in the same. For example, printing press subsystems characterized by a smaller number of printable print pages side by side in the longitudinal direction in comparison with printing press subsystems that print a larger number of print pages side by side on one substrate web in the longitudinal direction have advantages with regard to web width variability. However, printing press subsystems that print a larger number of print pages side by side on one substrate web in the longitudinal direction have certain advantages with regard to page capacity. Printing press subsystems that print only one print page on a substrate web as seen in the circumferential direction have advantages with regard to the achievable product variety in comparison with printing press subsystems that print several print pages in succession on one substrate web in the circumferential direction. The individual advantages of the individual printing press subsystems can be combined with the web-fed printing press according to this invention.
The printing mechanisms of the printing press subsystems that are designed differently are themselves designed differently, so that a different number of print pages is printable in the longitudinal direction and/or in the circumferential direction of the corresponding plate cylinders.
According to an advantageous refinement of the present invention, the printing press subsystems are designed differently in that the substrate webs are printable by different printing methods in the printing press subsystems.
According to another advantageous refinement of the present invention, the printing press subsystems are designed differently in that the printing ink is applied to the substrate webs in the printing press subsystems by different ink application methods.
According to another advantageous refinement, a different substrate is printable in at least one printing press subsystem in comparison with the other or each other printing press subsystem.
Preferred refinements of this invention are derived from the following description. Exemplary embodiments of the invention are explained in greater detail with reference to the drawings without being limited to these embodiments.